Eco Soundings

Development secretary Hilary Benn today unveils Britain's long-awaited strategy for agriculture in poor countries, and GM crops, as expected, are to be officially blessed. What happy timing, then, that Michael Pragnell, chief executive of Syngenta, the world's third largest GM company, should be in London last week to give a talk about poverty in Africa at No 11 Downing Street. Listeners included Benn, Treasury and Department for International Development officials, and some of the Commons international select committee. Syngenta's extraordinary access to No 11 came courtesy of the Smith Institute - named after former Labour leader John - which was launching a publication, sponsored by Syngenta and with an essay by Pragnell. Both organisations were adamant that GM was not on the agenda, even though the government's friendship with the company is clearly blooming. The head of the Syngenta Foundation is former DfID man Andrew Bennett, and DfID's chief scientist is Gordon Conway - who while running the Rockefeller Foundation in the US launched the Nairobi-based group known as the African Agricultural Technology Foundation - with the help of DfID and all major GM companies.

Commercial break

Seen those BP ads on TV and in the press? Impressed that the oil giant is getting the message on climate change? Think again. BP is also running a big advertising campaign in the US to coincide with the Montreal climate talks. Both versions have the same graphics, the same nifty tune, the same style. But whereas we Brits are told to "work out your carbon footprint - it's a start", the American consumer is told: "We're investing $15bn in finding new oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico - it's a start."

Farming in the frame

All in all, it was an interesting week for GM agriculture. The Indian farm minister said the GM cotton crop had failed in two states; Monsanto seized a bank account of the Confédération Paysanne, France's second largest agriculture trade union; the technology was rejected in a referendum in Switzerland, the home of Syngenta; and Russian and Italian research pointed to potential health problems in rats and mice fed GM soya and peas.

Lost the plot

Hats off to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for its restrained demolition of the barmy report into climate change from the House of Lords economic affairs committee, chaired by Lord Lawson. "This is unconvincing," the official government response begins, adding several times that Lawson and co are wrong when it comes to the committee's summer rehearsal of the usual smokescreens and distortions of climate science presented by the fringe commentators they invite to give expert testimony.

Fat lot of good

What likelihood of Tory environment man Bill Wiggin converting his car to run on chip fat? Pretty good, reckons Eco Soundings. Wiggin is angry that Customs & Excise - as revealed here two weeks ago - is removing the biofuel tax advantage of using vegetable oil in vehicles. "This makes a mockery of all the climate change rhetoric we have heard. The PM keeps telling us how important the environment is, and how we need to use renewable energy, yet as soon as we do, his chancellor sends out bills that make it pointless or even more expensive than fossil fuel," he says. Attaboy.

Plastic surgery

Chinese scientists have discovered a new weapon to fight the greenhouse effect: greenhouses. Experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences will tell the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting this week that the acres of plastic erected by farmers over the past decade are bouncing sunlight back into space. This increased reflectivity, or albedo, keeps the land cool.